


I think I found out (that I have nothing)

by apeirophobia



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drift Bond, Familial Abuse, Father/Son Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 04:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apeirophobia/pseuds/apeirophobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hercules Hansen has never been very good at saying "no".</p><p>Written for the Pacific Rim Kink Meme prompt: [Herc/Chuck aggression, dubcon/noncon] Chuck pursues his father and pushes him into a sexual relationship. Herc is uncomfortable with the whole thing but is afraid to reject his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I think I found out (that I have nothing)

One of the Striker Eureka techs says, to her friend, 

_ What do you call someone who won’t say ‘I love you’ to your face? _

(beat)   _A coward._  

 

(grins) 

_ What do you call someone who won’t say ‘I love you’ in The Drift? _

Her friends grins in response, " _What_?" she asks, already knowing the answer. 

_ A Hansen. _

* * *

 

Chuck. Chuck doesn’t ask, (so Herc never really gets a chance to say no). If ever properly confronted (which Herc is honest enough with himself to know will never happen in a million years) he would blame it on The Drift.

“I just knew, Dad.” Chuck says, pressed up against Herc’s back, breath hot on the outer shell of his ear, and the shiver that runs through the elder Hansen is apprehension, not lust.  _I just knew..._  (that’s why I didn’t need to ask, that’s why I kissed you, that’s why I didn’t stop.)

Chuck says, “this was always meant to happen,” and Herc hears,  _you chose this when you chose **me**_.

And Herc knows it’s not in The Drift, not really, because it’s not in  _Herc_ , not in his soul. (Hercules Hansen’s soul has belonged to Angela White since he was eighteen years old.) A soul that Stacker Pentecost navigates a time-share on with a beautiful ghost who will never see thirty. The living can never compete with the dead but Angela Hansen and Stacker Pentecost will always have solidarity in the fact that Herc has, separately, pledged his life to the both of them. Chuck though, Chuck is his  _heart_ ; the living, pulsing, broken part of him that grows and changes until it’s a twisted mirrored version of its original self. Twenty years ago Hercules Hansen became a father to a precious baby boy with chubby cheeks and big blue eyes, and that child grew up to kill monsters and stomp on the world.

Herc tries to suppress _those_  memories when drifting. Memories like Chuck’s smile (when Daddy came home) and thoughts that start with “When we were  _happy.._.” (when we were  _together_ ). Herc, during synchronization, thinks unbiddenly of Angela, and proud smiles, and first steps. Across the conn-pod, Herc sees Chuck’s eyes flash. It’s easier for everyone if Herc keeps Chuck ~ present day Ranger and vier for world’s most Kaiju kills ~ separate from Charlie, the 6 lb., 3 oz. very adored bundle of joy Angela and Hercules Hansen brought home from the hospital two decades ago. Chuck, Prodigy-of-the-Jaeger-Program,  _co-pilot_  Chuck is safe. Chuck, beloved son, is  _not_. (He has gotten better at anticipating the things Chuck is most likely to throw back in his face.)

Herc (Herc stills doesn’t say no). He thinks maybe when Chuck exhausts his anger, or whatever this is, this penance, that they’ll return to that comfortable distance they’ve always kept in the conn-pod and in their minds. He thinks ( _knows_ ) that if he says ‘no’, that will be admitting something to himself that he (knows, without admitting to himself that he  _does know_ ) can’t handle. And maybe, maybe this will stop all on its own. He did not raise Chuck to be a cruel boy (and Chuck says, with a laugh, “you didn’t raise me at’all.”)

Bite marks and bruises and muffled sobs mean something and something is better than nothing, Herc figures (and it’s funny what you can rationalize when you have no choice, the things you’ll either make sense of or lose your mind; sometimes Herc thinks he’s been rationalizing madness his whole life, been rationalizing Chuck for who knows how long). If Chuck feels anything for Herc then they can still Drift. And as long as they can still Drift Herc knows (can  _convince_  himself) his son is not entirely lost to him. (Herc has only ever wanted to make the Kaiju bleed, Chuck’s targets obviously hit a little closer to home.) And everybody in the Shatterdome always wonders why Herc, despite being known to be a notoriously graceful fighter, is always covered in bruises, but no one really questions it.

“I love you,” Chuck rushes out, a whisper across his father’s skin, a secret that’s told with friction and the sharp sides of nails, and Herc’s mind is decidedly blank. Loving Angela was warm skin and bright lights and that giddy feeling you get when you smell the surf for the first time. Loving Stacker is a contagious calm, like an appeal to gravity, the inevitable pressure drop of tension after a bind (he embodies trust and common sense, two things that are sorely lacking in the world today, and Herc finds it addicting). Loving Chuck is the only thing that’s ever hurt this bad. (He _doesn’t_ think about how the only thing Chuck and Angela have in common anymore is that he gets that deep, painful, ache in his chest when he thinks of them.)

Herc is lying on his back, catching his breath, and he hurts worse than he ever has after a Kwoon match (he has never tested incompatible with a candidate he’s sparred with, but some, like Chuck, come for a fight, not a dance). Chuck grins, a feral thing that hardens his jaw, and it’s more Scott than Angela (and sometimes Herc doesn’t even know what ghost he’s paying reparations to).

“You love me,” he says, a cocky proclamation with a question underneath. 

And Herc Hansen doesn’t say no.


End file.
